Coda
by Aiko Isari
Summary: Her fingers closed over the orange gem and she remembered. But only in part. AU


_Warning for death, violence, demonic possession, manipulation._

* * *

Prologue- A Tomato In the Mirror

 _Amou Kanade dreamed. In a sleep as deep as the trenches, she dreamed and drifted further and further out of reach._

Old red clay and ivy-covered rocks spread as far as her young, teenage eyes could see. The ruins grew out beyond even the horizon line up until the point that her sister complained of a cramp in her neck. Kanade still didn't want to turn away. She couldn't miss a thing. This would be her future, her tomorrow heavy in stone and paperwork that she hated but loved to watch recorded.

She bounced in the seat of the car because today was supposed to be good and strong and full of wonders. There was a whole _Relic_ somewhere in the Ruins. Ryoko-san had thought they could find it. Had thought, had thought-

 _She had thought so much for such a pawn woman, for someone who wasn't even who they said that they were anymore._

 _Fine didn't last in a body. She had been so close to ascension that it was only natural._ -

She was just going to see the Relic herself. Maybe her sister could try it out. She couldn't. Ryoko-san had already told her that it would be nearly impossible for her. She just wasn't talented enough. That was normal apparently. Noise was just a threat she would need to be wary of like the rest of humanity. Not that she didn't already know that, but still. It was kind of disappointing that she couldn't be a hero who protected others with a beautiful song. At least if her sister got the power, she would be safer. Relatively. Her sis wasn't much of a fighter. And that was just how she liked it.

But if she could protect herself, that would be nice. Her sister couldn't sing.

* * *

Amou Kanade woke up in a hospital bed. She couldn't feel her fingers as she flexed them. Not at first. Then pain layered every joint, everything in the world seemed conspired to push down on her at the same time. Through the loudest screams in her life, she recalled a very simple fact: her family was dead. She couldn't say whether they were ash or buried under the rocks. A part of her hoped it was quick. Most of her was full of rage.

But something, something heavy and cold, was deep in thought. Something in her was whispering, _this was asetupp._ Something on her said, how did _she_ survive?

Because someone wanted her to. Because she was stubborn. Because of both.

Through the grief, Kanade acknowledged, in the darkest parts of herself, _this is a set up._

She just had to narrow down who had been the fool to do it.

(She'd notice the words were wrong later, wrong for her but they were the truth just as much. After all, hell hath no fury like a grieving child.)

* * *

The walls were made of clay. That had been the very first thing that Kanade had noticed in her desperate attempt to observe everything in a single glance. Her mother had laughed at her sheer enthusiasm. This wasn't the first ruin any of them had visited before, but it was the first ruin they had come to in a long while. When you homeschooled two children, things had to be kept exciting. Or it wouldn't last long, simply put. It had not been Kanade who had decided to take apart the microwave. Nope.

Kotone was so far ahead of her, her car boredom now replaced with innocent glee. She sprinted after their parents, babbling about the implications behind the architecture and the methodology of the construction in a way that was uncanny for many people at the age of eleven. But then, Kanade had seen her little sister draw a full building design on sketch paper. She was good at these things.

Kanade? Well, she wasn't good at much of anything. Except talking, but anyone could do that, surely. And lullabies, but again, anyone could do it.

(She didn't understand, nope, not her, that she could make friends very well and that was essential you see, that was important. It was so necessary to make connections to find her fellows. She didn't recognize her own skills with tools, nor the strength of her will. Nobody knows their strengths until they truly need them and that's the biggest shame.)

She heard the crackling of course she did. But Noise was silent until the explosions.

* * *

There was no funeral. Not in the traditional sense. The ashes, having been carefully excavated (and basically assumed to be theirs) were placed not in a shrine, nor an urn, but melted into a diamond. It was the latest trend for some richer folks.

She was not rich. Someone had done this for her, maybe to pity her. Maybe to mock her. It was kind of hard to tell. She didn't put it down. She didn't smash it. Instead, Kanade spun it on its chain over her bandaged fingers. It was the least and most painful thing she had ever done in her life. She wanted to let the tears fall. She wanted to let the salt water burn the marks on her face.

Ryoko-san visited her. She apologized. She made paper butterflies and told her she would not be stuck to that bed much longer. She told the truth and yet it was a lie. It was a real lie. She should have died in that accident. Accident, event. But she hadn't and every nurse, every fledgling SONG staff member, didn't understand how. Not even Ryoko-san had understood how, and she had been there. Genjuro had theorized that the debris that had nearly crushed her had been the cause. She had simply gone ignored.

And that hurt. It hurt her pride.

But what could she do?

What could she actually do?

 _SONG has the answers,_ she remembered. Those two, they'd been experimenting for a way, searching for Relics, for counters. _They have a method. How far will you go to get it?_

 _I'll never find the ones who killed them._

 _I'll never know who made her scream like that._

 _(Was there even a chance to scream?)_

Kanade couldn't help her smile, teeth feeling too sharp against her lips. _Then I'll just have to kill all f them._ The very idea sounded delightful, a little too much so.

At the moment, she was so angry that she couldn't care.

* * *

Follow the jumping blue rabbit.

Kanade followed Tsubasa with her eyes. She couldn't do anything else, strapped to the chair as she was. Not that she blamed them, she had bitten three doctors and broke a window and a keypad in her attempt to mad-dash escape from this shitty hospital. She was starting to think she had claustrophobia or something similar. Maybe she just wasn't a bondage person.

… That was a thought that didn't belong in her head. Something was wrong.

She still couldn't do anything about it, but for the first time in a while, the fog of rage was clearing. She wanted to do something about it. But first, this.

Vengeance.

(Second was noticing the way Ryoko looked at her, second was facing fact that the truth was right in front of her and she just needed to know why and what it was.)

But for now, she watched Tsubasa, who in another lifetime she had meant to babysit, meant to lick her wounds and press the stress out of her war-worn shoulders.

 _She's too young for me._

 _It's like a year._

 _Too young. Too bloodless, too full of noble deeds._

That didn't make any sense at all.

* * *

She dreamed of ships and far away seas. She dreamed of a singing voice from the moon, male and haunting, sad and old. She dreamed that she was reaching out her hands as if she could catch the moon drops and make that voice. As if she could make that voice come to her. As if… as if…

Kanade woke up with her arm outstretched, the bandages straining on her healing arms, her too tugged fingers aching in each joint for something to relieve them. The moon was full, far away as her ability to act but it seemed close enough to grasp in one hand.

Close enough to shatter with her palm. But the world needed the moon, needed it for the tides. Needed for the comfort it gave in a world without stars.

 _\- We don't need it, not really. We have the stars. It just reflects light and separates us, why keep it?-_

She couldn't destroy it. She didn't even know where to start.

 _\- Too bad.-_

She didn't like this. But who would listen to her? She couldn't even want to listen to herself.

* * *

Kanade was not religious.

Kanade depended on the things right before her eyes.

Kanade was realizing that she was wrong.

She was wrong because these relics were both legends and real. Truth didn't take away from something being legendary. Truth didn't necessarily deny magic.

Kazanari Tsubasa was making magic.

She wanted it. She wanted to watch her own songs bring light and justice down. Did Noise understand justice?

(She supposed the better question was: did people?)

Tsubasa couldn't look at her. This wasn't a surprise. Kanade, still injured, still needed to be strapped to something to behave herself. Tsubasa was a rabbit with a pretty voice. She can't help but wonder what will make a person that way. She didn't ask, of course. It was important but not important. How weird.

But she had to try.

* * *

Tsubasa couldn't cook.

She could sing, she could dress herself, she could look like a helpless bunny with a music note for a top part of her head, but she could't cook or clean and the absolute absurdity was that Kanade herself could. So it only made sense that they were roomed together. That they lived together

Even though Tsubasa still jumped whenever she walked into a room Kanade was in, the older girl couldn't help but notice the lowered height of the girl's smaller shoulders. The way she looked a little more loose despite hours and hours of sword practice with stiff limbs and poor strength. The way she positively squeaked when Kanade dropped a cold washcloth over her face, ruining her concentration.

It was shamelessly cute. Kanade had no idea what to do with that. Except to tease.

Maybe if she treated Tsubasa like a little sister, everything would work out, and she would feel none of the guilt of clinging to her power like a child to their parent. Maybe she could find what made Tsubasa naturally able and her not. There had to be a way to channel it.

Besides, singing on a battlefield together, it couldn't be that bad, right?

* * *

In that moment, plans collided. Kanade heard and felt it all.

It was like a trainwreck you're three feet from. She realized, watching Ryoko-san over her papers. Watching her violet eyes sometimes flicker from focused to cunning. Listening to her heels stepping a little too sharply on the ground, listening to the way machines seemed to _flicker_ off for brief intervals, almost unnoticeable.

But Kanade noticed. In order to survive, Kanade had to notice everything.

There were more tests too. Tests of her blood, of her skin, her endurance. She was not a natural talent like Tsubasa. So what made her special? And what, more importantly, made Tsubasa special?

Kanade licked her lips and then her ice cream. Well, she wasn't going to make it that easy for her. Not even at this concert where she bet her own life.

She passed the hallway, licking vanilla cream as it ran down her wrist, breathing in great, beautiful gulps of air. People existed, peripherally in her vision. They had never been close before. THen again, she hadn't fallen backwards and nearly hit her head before. Damn it. There went that ice cream.

Everything faded into this strange, full body throb. As it continued to pulse akin to a speaker, Kanade heard _the voice_. It was the speaker that had uttered various words for a thousand times already, that had called for the destruction of the moon, of boundaries, of separation. Who called for love.

 _Who are you?_

It took all of her energy, and perhaps all of her courage, to form those words. It didn't help that she physically couldn't even twitch her fingers and all the muscles under her skin couldn't even twitch at the thoughts she had.

 _We are you,_ it answered, smug and impactless as a passing comet. _And we are Fine._

Kanade felt the fall this time, falling without a body into a sea of unfiltered hope and thought. She fell, and continued to fall.

The idea of sound and sight quickly escaped her. The concept of fingers and a tongue escaped her. She fell from body to body, concept to concept waiting for a bottom that never came.

Then, Kanade opened her eyes.

Tsubasa slept beside her. Two years of togetherness. Two years of confidence, of songs together, of meals and rehearsals and training spats together, two years full of life had brought this girl to be vulnerable enough to wait by her side for her to wake up. To sleep beside her and feel safe.

 _Use it._

The voice like her, the voice of Fine, resounded in her mind. The urge to listen was overbearing, weighing down her head and throat.

 _She will do anything so you stay safe. Use it. Use her. She won't know the difference._

But Kanade would. She managed to reach out and stroke the blue locks. Then she laid back, intending to think for as long as possible. If she knew what was going to happen now, there wasn't much time left at all.

If she wasn't careful, a whole city area would die. And so would she.

She couldn't let that happen.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** _Hey everyone, this is Aiko back with another Symphogear fanfic. This time we're exploring the fun that is a possible connection between Fine and Kanade. So let's go!

 **Challenges:** Diversity WritingCOML12, Epic Masterclass Symphogear List 2


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